


Intervention

by thingswithwings



Category: Black Books
Genre: Gen, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2008, recipient:AimeeK
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-23 23:58:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/256541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thingswithwings/pseuds/thingswithwings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Manny and Fran vs Misanthropic Booksellers' Syndrome.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Intervention

"No," Bernard said, his voice carrying across the empty shop. "No, no, no, no, no. I'm not selling it to you, no."

"But - " The second voice sounded like it belonged to a customer; Manny could always tell by the note of shivering terror that Bernard managed to inspire. Manny was never sure if it was Bernard's natural demeanour that inspired such terror or if it was perhaps the fact that his natural demeanour was often wine-soaked, smoke-infused, bloodshot, dirty, and smelling of many strange and mystical bodily smells. Either way, Bernard had presence.

"No," Bernard said again, louder this time. Manny winced. "You can't have it - give it to me. Give it, give it, will - you - just - "

"Can I help?" Manny asked, stepping in between them and managing to lay a hand on the book that was the centre of the tug-of-war slash slapfight that Bernard was having with a little old lady. Manny had to give her credit: she was holding her own against Bernard, her wrinkled fingers clutched tight around the book, her eyes fierce and determined beneath her flowered bonnet.

Bernard reacted to Manny's interruption by doubling his attack, widening the range of his slaps to include Manny's arms and face.

"Hey!" Manny was distracted by the bodily assault long enough that he let go of the book at just the same moment that the little old lady did.

Bernard gave one last tug and fell backwards a few steps, clutching the book to his chest.

"Nufersale," Bernard mumbled, carrying the book as if it were a baby and he, Bernard, were someone who liked babies. Then he shoved it haphazardly into the bottom drawer of the desk.

The customer straightened her bonnet, harrumphing the whole time, then turned on her heel and left.

"That's it, run!" Bernard called after her. "Tell your friends! Spread the word!"

"Bernard," Manny said, "I know you don't particularly like customers - "

"Parasites! All of them! I often want to beat them over the head and then chop them all up into tiny tiny little bits and then stomp on the bits and then perhaps have a nap afterwards."

" - but wouldn't it be alright if we sold just one or two books, now and then? Just to pay the bills? And my salary?"

"No," Bernard answered, propping his feet up on the desk and lighting a cigarette. "You're living far too high off the hog as it is. Going without pay for a while will be good for you. You'll just have to learn to tighten your beard."

Before Manny could disclaim his height relative to hogs or even raise a defensive hand to stroke his beautiful, beautiful beard, the bell over the door rang with a particular ring that Manny knew well. He turned to see Fran framed in the doorway, carrying several large shopping bags and affecting a pose of beleaguered exhaustion.

"Manny! Bernard! Oh thank god. I need your help!"

"Fran, tell Manny he can't have a raise."

"I wasn't asking for a raise!"

"Good, because you can't have one," Bernard pronounced, picking up a magazine and leafing through it while he took another puff of his cigarette.

"Are you two even listening?" Fran yelled, knocking on Manny's head as if it were his front door. "I need help!"

"Fine, fine, yes," Bernard said, not moving. "What do you need? I'm not getting up, I've just sat down."

"I need a book," Fran answered. She was breathing heavily, her hair mussed and hanging in her eyes. "On Greco-Roman architecture. I know I saw one here."

Bernard's magazine - a six-year-old issue of _Simply Knitting_ \- was thrown onto the desk. Bernard's eyes - a misty blue-grey that reminded Manny of the sea on a cloudy day - were fixed on the floor. "Oh, it's been sold," Bernard said, talking to the thing in the wastepaper basket that Manny had stepped on last month.

"No, it hasn't," Manny said. "We haven't sold a single book all week, thanks to you. And who buys books on Greco-Roman architecture anyway?"

"Lots of people," Bernard responds. "Tons and tons of lots of people do. It's a new fad. There's not a single book on the subject left in the shop."

"Here's one right here," Manny said. It was sitting on the desk, on the top of a pile; Manny held it up. On the front, in big, yellow letters, it said: _Greco-Roman Architecture: An Introduction._

"Oh, thank goodness," Fran said, dropping all her packages and rummaging in her pockets for money. "I haven't time to explain, but this will really help me out of a tight spot I'm in with a circus acrobat and an investment banker."

As Manny held the book out to her, he realised that his hands were empty: the book was gone. He wheeled to face Bernard.

"What?" Bernard said, holding up his hands and dropping the book into his lap. "It wasn't me."

"Come on, Fran needs the book. Why don't you sell it to her?"

"I have money," Fran said, holding up a wad of crumpled notes.

Bernard eyed her, fingers clutching at the book again. "I'm afraid it's a rare edition. It's eighty pounds."

Wordlessly, Fran counted off four twenties and held them out to Bernard.

"Did I say eighty? I misspoke. I meant a hundred. And ten."

Fran pulled off another two notes and held them out. Bernard's eyes flicked from the fistful of money being proffered, to the book in his hands, to Fran's eyes, then back to the money again. He licked his lips. "It's promised to another customer," he said finally.

"You're telling me that you can't sell that book, not even to a friend in need, not even for a hundred pounds," Fran intoned slowly.

Bernard's fingers hesitated against the cover; his eye twitched; he blinked rapidly. The long silence of the standoff filled the shop.

"No!" Bernard yelled, finally. "No, you can't have it!" Then Bernard curled into a protective ball around _Greco-Roman Architecture: An Introduction_ and rolled under the desk with it.

Manny looked at Fran, who sighed. "This is going to be harder than I thought," she said.

-

"MBS," Manny repeated, stroking his beard thoughtfully. "I see." Then he paused mid-stroke. "Wait, what's MBS?"

"Misanthropic Booksellers Syndrome," Fran said seriously. "It's usually dormant, but every year or so Bernard's symptoms flare up. I haven't seen him this ill in years."

Manny nodded. "So there really isn't a circus acrobat and an investment banker in a tight spot?"

"No, it's all a bluff," Fran said. "Well. Except for the part about the acrobat. But no, I just had to test to see how bad he'd gotten. You know Bernard, it's hard to tell debilitating illness from his usual personality."

Manny peeked out from behind the curtain, looking to where Bernard was sitting, still flipping through the same issue of _Simply Knitting._ Really, Manny should've seen the warning signs himself. Fran, peeking from the other half of the curtain, poked Manny in the side as a customer approached Bernard at the desk.

"Excuse me, may I ask - " the customer began.

"No you may not," Bernard interrupted, not looking up from his magazine.

"Nothing unusual there," Manny whispered.

"Wait for it," Fran said.

"I just want to purchase this book, please," the customer said, shoving it into Bernard's face.

Bernard glanced up at the book, and then at the customer. "I can't sell it to you," Bernard said.

Fran gave Manny a knowing look. Squinting, Manny saw the book's title: _An Ornithological Survey of Western Surrey, 1850-1875._

"Look, how much do you want for it?"

"It's not for sale," Bernard snapped, and snatched it from the customer's hands. He tossed it into the bottom drawer of the desk, next to _Ethno-Cultural Relations in the Austrian Empire of Franz Joseph the Second_ and _Arnold Schwarzenegger: A Life._

As the customer sputtered his way out of the store, Fran picked up the large parcels that she'd brought in with her. "We'll have to get started right away," she said, grimacing.

-

Curing Bernard of his Miserable Bastard Syndrome -

("Misanthropic Booksellers Syndrome," Fran corrected)

\- took longer, and involved more bacon grease, than Manny was personally comfortable with, but Fran assured him that was a necessary process, so he kept the hot water and chicken feathers coming.

"Bubblegum," Fran called. Manny held it up. Fran took it and stuck it in Bernard's ears.

"Handkerchief," she said. Manny proffered it, and Fran tied it over Bernard's eyes.

Fran wiped the back of her wrist against her forehead. "Hot fudge," she said.

Manny gave it to her. "Here," he said. "What's it for, anyway?"

"For us - I brought ice cream for the waiting period. We have to leave Bernard alone in sensory deprivation for a while."

Manny glanced dubiously at the ropes securing Bernard to the kitchen table and the bubblegum in his ears. "He's going to be pissed off when he wakes up."

"Well, he's already pissed, that's why he fell asleep." Fran grinned at him and handed him a bowl of ice cream. "Now comes the hard part: no books, booze, or fags for three days. Especially no books."

-

From the kitchen, Bernard screamed.

Manny tried to stand to go to him, but Fran pulled him back down to the sofa, shaking her head.

"It's for his own good," Fran said. "Let him be."

-

"Manny," Bernard called. "Manny, my friend, my pal, just come in here a minute, just come in a minute, will you?"

Manny hesitated. Fran was in the toilet; there was no one to know. And Bernard needed him. He walked into the kitchen.

"Manny, Manny, Manny, beautiful bearded Manny, come over here," Bernard crooned. Manny bent down and wiped Bernard's brow. "Manny," Bernard said again, "Can you get me a book? Just a little one, Manny, just _Return of the Soldier_ or _The Crying of Lot 49_ or something, something small like that, maybe that little pocket-copy of Beckett's _Endgame_ , that's all I'm asking."

Manny watched his friend suffering, and shook his head sadly. "I can't do it, Bernard. Not until you've been detoxed."

Bernard screamed again, pulling against his restraints.

-

Manny spent the three days of Bernard's MBS detox dusting the shelves, putting the accounts in order, and pureeing chicken to feed to Bernard through a straw. Throughout the final day, Bernard didn't manage a single word of English, though Manny was pretty sure that he said a few things in Aramaic at one point. Then, just past sunset on the third day, Bernard came stumbling out of the kitchen, covered in drool and bits of ground chicken, massaging his head.

"Manny," he said, his voice soft as if with hangover, "thank you. Thanks, mate." And he stumbled over to where Manny was standing and wrapped his arms around Manny's shoulders and squeezed firmly.

"What's going on?" Manny squeaked, as Bernard's hands soothed over his back and Bernard's unshaven cheek pressed against his neck. "What are you doing to me with your arms?"

Bernard pulled back, still gripping Manny by the shoulders. "I really appreciate what you've done for me," he said. "You're a true friend, and a good man." Manny blinked. "Where's Fran? I want to thank her, too."

"She's, uh, she's gone out for groceries," Manny stuttered. Bernard smiled, in a way that didn't even look like he had just swallowed a live badger.

"I'll go help her carry them back, then," he said, and dashed out the front door.

Manny stood in the centre of the bookshop, stunned. "This is the greatest day of my life," he breathed.

-

Two days later, Manny stood in the centre of the bookshop, overwhelmed. "This is the worst day of my life!" he exclaimed. Around him, the tide of customers milled and thickened like lumpy gravy. He'd never seen the shop so busy.

"Shut up and help me with these," Fran grunted, shouldering past him with an armful of books stacked up higher than the top of her head. At the front of the shop, Bernard was cheerfully ringing up customer after customer, laughing at their jokes, offering discounts, and letting them walk off with the good stuff, the Brontes and the Prousts and the Aphra Behns, even if they didn't deserve them.

Manny took half of the books out of Fran's arms and set them down on the big table, where hordes of ravaging customers fell to them like vultures to carrion. Fran sighed pitifully.

"I dunno, Manny, I'm beginning to think that we made a mistake," she said, looking over at Bernard.

Manny put on his biggest smile and tried not to notice the customer leaving the shop with a box full of Bernard's favourites, a beautiful hardback copy of _Tono-Bungay_ perched atop the pile. As Manny watched from the corner of his eye, the hardback fell from the box and into a puddle below; the customer, unconcerned, kicked the book along to his car rather than picking it up.

"It's fine!" Manny said, shaking his head and closing his eyes. "It's wonderful, Bernard's been nice to me, the shop's making money, things have never been better."

Fran eyed him, then went to the back to fetch more of books, emerging with another towering stack of Victorian sensation fiction pressed against her face.

At the front, a tiny customer approached Bernard where he sat at his desk.

"Sir," said the little tow-headed street urchin, holding up a pristine, first-edition, autographed copy of _Watership Down_ , "how much is this one? Only, I love the rabbits, but this is all the money I have." And he dumped a tiny fistful of coins out onto the desk: probably about sixty p all told.

Bernard stared at the coins; the urchin stared at his shoes; Manny stared at Bernard. Fran, still carrying a precarious tower of paperbacks, stared at the well-worn spine of _Lady Audley's Secret_.

"Oh, go on then," Bernard said eventually, waving jovially at the urchin. The child cheered, and clutched his book to his chest, and bounded out of the store.

Manny sidled up next to Fran and put his lips near her ear. "Okay, perhaps you're right," he said quietly.

Fran, startled, screamed and threw the books into the air before tripping over a stack of Mills & Boone, flailing wildly, and landing directly on her posterior.

"Are you alright, Fran?" Bernard called, sounding honestly concerned with her well-being.

Fran's eyes narrowed. "Manny," she said, "get the chicken feathers. And the straws. We're re-toxing him."

Manny nodded grimly. This had to end.

-

Three days later, Bernard stumbled out of the kitchen, a straw still sticking out of his mouth, dripping cheap red wine onto his shirt. He had a cigarette in each hand, and his eyes had gone back to their normal bleary bloodshot colour. The pink of health had left his cheeks, and the sallow of being angry and bitter had returned.

Manny had never seen anything so lovely. He clutched Fran's hand, and she squeezed back just as hard.

"Bernard!" he called. "It's good to have you back."

Bernard shuffled to his chair and sat down heavily, taking a puff of first one cigarette and then another, not bothering to remove the straw from his mouth first. "Rnnnggghhh," he said.

Behind them, the bell sang out happily as a customer entered the store.

"Pardon me," she said, walking right past Manny and Fran and up to Bernard where he sat, moaning, with his face pressed to the desk.

"Rnnnggghhh," Bernard repeated, insistently, as if annoyed that she hadn't understood him the first time.

"Pardon me," she repeated, mirroring his tone, "but I was hoping you'd have a copy of _Simply Knitting_ lying about that I could buy - I need something to read on the bus."

Manny drew in a breath and held it; beside him, Fran stood absolutely still, waiting.

Without removing his face from the desktop, Bernard flailed around at the desk drawers, scattering books everywhere. Eventually he came up with the magazine he'd been reading when this all began.

He threw it in the customer's general direction, and moaned, "Two pounds."

"What?" she cried, looking at the rumpled pages and the bits of bacon grease stuck to the cover. "It wasn't worth that new!"

"S'rare," Bernard said. His lips were leaving a wet trail on the blotter. "And also you deserve to be punished for buying a magazine about knitting."

The woman exclaimed a few exclamations, then finally pulled a coin out of her purse and handed it over.

Manny watched as the customer left the shop, the bell tinkling behind her. The moment the door was closed, he rushed over to Bernard's side; Fran went round the other way, and they converged on Bernard's slack drooling form in a crushing, exuberant, three-way hug.

"What's going on?" Bernard cried, his eyes opening suddenly, panic crossing his features as he took in the arms surrounding him. "What are you doing to me with your arms? Stop it!"

"We love you, Bernard," Fran said. Manny burrowed his nose into Bernard's neck.

"Get off of me, you worthless leeches, you smell like bacon!" Bernard shouted, shaking them off. "I hate you both."

"We know," Manny said, beaming. It was the greatest day of his life.

  



End file.
